Being Friends With Boys (30 page)

Sylvia comes around the corner from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. I’m still a little shocked that our first performance is coming up so soon and that they hadn’t told me anything about it before, but the concept sounds fun and cool. I say so to both of them.

“Hooray hooray,” Taryn cheers, leading me past everyone and down into the basement, where there are about a dozen candles lit around the room.

“We wanted, you know, some special ambiance,” she explains, though I’m not really sure what for.

Her other friends tromp down the stairs behind us. I’m glad that there are other people here. It’ll help me get ready for next week, singing in front of strangers.

“We found a couple new songs,” Taryn says, shoving some pages into my hands.

I look down at the lyric sheets. I’m not sure it’s a great idea for us to take on new material right before performing, but maybe she just wants to expand our options. Maybe she’s thinking beyond next Saturday too.

“Well!” Taryn says. “Lots to work on. What should we start with?”

She’s looking at me, not Sylvia. So is everyone else. I guess I really am their lucky charm.

“Well—” I think of Eli, and how important he thought it was to drill every song. “How about we warm up with the Heart song, since that’s the one I know best.”

Taryn looks at Sylvia. “But I really want to try a couple of these new ones.”

Yeah, but we need to practice
, I want to say, but it’s clear Taryn doesn’t think so. I figure starting with a new song or two won’t kill me.

And so we start. The first one Taryn chooses is really too high for me, but it kind of doesn’t matter, I guess, since we’re just testing it out. After that, we run through song after song—some old, some new. But we never go through anything more than once. Taryn’s nodding and encouraging me the whole time, and her friends on the couch are rolling their heads and tapping along, so I try to stop worrying, and just throw the notes out.

By the time we finish, it’s after seven. I’m breathless and happy
and even Sylvia is bouncy, since the last song got everyone dancing around the basement. Taryn suggests we decide on Tuesday what we’ll perform at Earhorn, and then work on getting everything perfect. Since Sylvia agrees with everything Taryn says, I don’t let myself be bothered about it either. The whole afternoon feels like a much-needed karaoke party.

“We should go to Earhorn!” Taryn holds her hands over her head in victory.

“What, now?” Sylvia.

“No, not
now
, silly. We should get some grub first. Go, I don’t know, to the Righteous or something, and then head over there. Check out the competition. Do some research.” She rubs her hands together like she’s developing an evil plot.

“I have to check with my dad,” I say. Stupid high school girl. But nobody seems to care.

So I call Dad, ask him if it’s okay if I go out to dinner with the girls in the band, maybe hang out awhile after.

“Home by eleven thirty,” he insists. “And I want to meet these girls.”

“You will, Dad. We’re playing next Saturday. You can come.”

“All right, then.” His tone perks up, though he’s trying to mask it.

“All right.”

When I tell everyone it’s okay, they clap and cheer and argue
about who’s riding in which car with me. This is way better than Lish and her stupid slumber party, or Oliver and his moods.

The Righteous Room turns out to be a long, skinny bar full of tables crowded with hipsters and their cigarettes, plus a few regular construction-looking guys in baseball caps. Everyone talks around me about what they’re going to eat, handing menus back and forth. While we wait I text Fabian, tell him I’m out with Taryn and Sylvia and that I can’t do next Saturday night because we’ll be playing (
!!!
). A menu finally gets passed to me, and I order the first thing that looks like it might be good.

We eat. We talk. They drink. Across from me, Taryn and a girl in a yellow hat are embroiled in some conversation about education for women in some country I haven’t heard of. Sylvia sees me watching them, raises her beer in a sympathetic toast.

But I like it, being with them. I like being in this gaggle of women who have more to discuss than who is wearing what, who’s dating whom, and who might be doing what with someone else. Sociology, indie bands, socialized medicine—whatever. It’s energizing to be submerged in something so different.

We finish eating. I give Taryn the twelve dollars I have in my wallet and hope it’s enough. Cards are handed across the table to her. Nobody else seems to know what they owe.

Into the cars again—I offer to drive, but Sylvia and Freckle
Face say they only had one beer and are okay—and then down through a bunch of streets I’ve never been on before and into the parking lot of what must be Earhorn. Looking at the plain warehouse front, you wouldn’t know this was anywhere to be if you didn’t know it was where to be.
Lish, you would die to see this
goes through my head as we walk up.
And you, too, Oliver. Both of you would fall down and die from the overwhelming coolness.

Inside is amazing, and I wish, for a second, that I’d somehow known about this place back when Trip and I were friends, because he would totally flip over the whole Victorian vibe inside. The front room is dedicated to gallery space—all kinds of art on three walls, with flickering candles and a fireplace filling up the other one. A round velvet couch is in the middle. On and around it are a few girls in scarves, some boys in dark jeans, all of them holding plastic glasses I can only assume are filled with wine.

We all squeeze down a thin hallway to another room, this one even darker. At the very back is a triangular space that’s clearly the stage. Along the right side is a bar, with a guy coated in tattoos doling out drinks. Taryn stops, shakes hands with a girl all vintaged out in a black dress, black platform heels, and a thin black hat with a veil. Trip would love her too.

“Come on,” Sylvia says, grabbing my elbow and leading me over to the bar. “Let’s get you some ginger ale or something.”

I accept Sylvia’s offer, and we perch against the bar, watching
everyone. There are people smoking. People drinking. People done up in outfits, and people who couldn’t seem to care less.

As I look around the room, Sylvia doesn’t say anything to me, and neither does anyone else, but it’s cooler not to talk—not to have to fill the space with our noise. I stand there, sipping my ginger ale, and order another when I finish.

After what feels like a long while, a pudgy guy in jeans and a suit jacket gets up onstage. I watch Taryn move toward him, but there are already four other people who also want to talk to him.

“There we go,” Sylvia says, lifting her beer in his direction. “The ringleader of the circus, so to speak.”

Taryn hovers on the edges, and then finally dives in, practically elbowing another girl off the stage. The guy looks at her at first with tolerance while she talks, and then interest. Finally he shakes her hand. She heads off the stage grinning, and I lose them in the crowd as the guy steps to the mic, welcomes everyone. There are loud cheers from the audience.

“Let’s get right to it,” he says. “Remember this is a judged competition, with our judges being anonymous. But trust me, they’re all here, so be careful who you snub.”

Chuckles from the audience, which has grown. Taryn and her friends finally appear beside us.

“Don’t you want to go closer?” Taryn says.

“We’re good here,” Sylvia answers.

Taryn looks at her a second, and then, I guess, agrees. The emcee calls the first performer up to the stage. Her hair is dyed black and she’s carrying a giant case, maybe for a cello. I lean against the bar, trying to read the looks on Taryn’s and Sylvia’s faces. I don’t know what all of this is normally like, but for me, I can tell, it’s going to be an education.

Two hours later we’re back in the car. I’m up front, giving Sylvia directions to my house. Everyone is high-fiving each other and laughing.

“We are going to trounce them next week!” Taryn shouts from the backseat.

“So we’re all signed up?” Sylvia wants to know.

“For the third time, yes. God. Everything’s taken care of.”

“And you will dominate,” Veronica says.

Though I’m still thinking that that guy with the harmonica was extremely talented, and some of the other performers were also terrific, I too feel pretty good about our chances next week. Most of the groups tonight were snobby performers, hardly able to engage the audience. Our style is way more peppy and interesting. We’ll definitely make an impact. Especially if we practice hard.

“You feel good?” Taryn asks, getting out to hug me when they drop me off.

“I feel good.” I nod, still trying to absorb everything I saw tonight.

“You know you’re going to rock, right?”

“We’re going to rock.”

“So Tuesday we’ll just perfect a few things,” she says, flitting her hand.

“We’ll make it perfect all week.”

She touches my face. “
You
are perfect. I’m glad you came out with us.”

“Me too. And thanks for the ride.”

“See you Tuesday?”

“Tuesday, Tuesday,” I sing, stepping back.

Sylvia toots the horn as she pulls away, and I dance, waving at them in the yard. The whole way back into the house, I feel the happiest I’ve been all week.

After such an amazing Saturday night, after getting a glimpse of what life will be like in another short year when maybe I’m in college too, or at least not in high school anymore, nothing else really matters. School becomes a monotonous blur. I don’t see Trip. I don’t see Abe or Eli. I don’t see Lish and I don’t care. I pretend I don’t see Oliver ignoring me in psych. I eat my lunch hunched over a book. Benji meets me before class every day, and I trade a few texts with Fabian. Tuesday night Taryn and Sylvia and I practice again, agree on the set list, and jump up and down together. It is way more fun than any Sad Jackal rehearsal—even the ones this
summer with Trip. I call Jilly so that we can both squeal about the fact that she’ll be home for Thanksgiving break next week. I sing, alone in my room, since Taryn and Sylvia are too busy for other practices. I duck my head down. I make it through.

And then it’s Saturday again. By the time I wake up at eleven o’clock, Taryn’s left me five texts. Most of them are full of exclamation points. One of them asks if I want to come over early, maybe go to the Righteous again for dinner before the show. I find Gretchen in her and Darby’s room, ask if it’s okay if I take the car.

“Of course, rock star,” she says. “Darby’s going to be mad you’re not letting her do you over, though.”

“Oh, no. Of course she is. I’m getting ready before I leave. I couldn’t do this without her.” I indicate my baggy flannel pajama bottoms, my rat’s-nest hair.

“She probably has a schedule for you, then.” Gretchen smirks. “You better get downstairs and see.”

By quarter to seven I am in the car, blasting the stereo, singing at the top of my lungs—partly to warm up, partly because I have to get out some energy. With the sun already mostly down and everyone’s headlights on, driving feels even more exotic, more grown-up. I am excited and nervous, but in a good way. Darby spent several hours blowing out my hair, treating my face with a couple of different anti-whatever creams and gels, and then
meticulously applying a lot of makeup in such a way that somehow doesn’t look like I’ve got that much on. I even like my outfit: the new sailor pants I love so much and a pretty, drapey burgundy top with some dangly gold earrings of Darby’s. It probably isn’t going to seem very cool compared to the fashionistas at Earhorn, but it makes me feel good, and I’m comfortable in it, which I know is what matters the most. Plus, in these pants Darby doesn’t mind if I wear my boots, which helps me feel even more myself.

“Wow, you look pretty,” Veronica says to me when she answers the door. She holds it open, letting me walk in. I can’t help but notice she is in a robe and pajamas, with furry slippers in the shape of bananas.

“You’re not coming?”

She gives her head a small shake. “Something’s going on between them.” She points to the floor above us. “And I want some peace while I can get it.”

“Is everything okay?” I whisper back.

“I don’t know. Taryn poured her first drink at four, and Sylvia won’t come out of her room. Maybe it’s nerves, but they’re not good signs, believe me.” Her voice rises so that it floats up the stairs, cheerful, “But I’m sure they’ll be right down in a minute.”

“Thanks.” I’m not sure what to do with this news.

We hear a door open upstairs, and Taryn calls, “Hi, pumpkin! Come on up!”

I give Veronica a
Wish me luck
glance and head upstairs.

“You look pretty,” Taryn says, all breathy, setting down a red plastic cup on her incredibly cluttered but very cool vintage dressing table. The kind with a round mirror.

“Thanks,” I tell her, looking around. Her room isn’t that big, and most of it is filled with the dressing table and a giant bed with a matching wooden headboard. There are some bookshelves anchored to the wall, crowded with books and papers and pictures and CDs and figurines, and a small table beside the bed overflowing with more books and magazines. The floor is covered with clothes and more CDs. It’s worse than Darby and Gretchen’s room. Worse than even Oliver’s.